2/16/10

Plagiarism is a capital crime in journalism and in academia. As the offender Kouwe himself says, there are no excuses.

There will be more on this sad event, but for now the NY Observer via HuffPost reports that Times plagiarist Zachery Kouwe has resigned.

Update: The New York Observer's John Koblin spoke to Kouwe, who resigned on Tuesday.

"I was as surprised as anyone that this was occurring," Kouwe said. "I write essentially 7,000 words every week for the blog and for the paper and all that stuff. As soon as I saw, I guess, like six examples, I said to myself, 'Man what an idiot. What I was thinking?'"

"I was stupid and careless and fucked up and thought it was my own stuff, or it somehow slipped in there," he added. "I think that's what probably happened."

Still, he acknowledged the seriousness of his mistakes and did not excuse himself.

"There's no excuse for this," he said. "I understand the seriousness of it. Even if it was inadvertent, that doesn't make it any less serious."